On Saturday, May 11, Papadosio and The Polish Ambassador are taking over Red Rocks Amphitheatre for a night of uplifting jams and danceable beats. With Wildlight joining The Polish Ambassador and opening support from Random Rab, the stacked lineup is a perfect mix of funky electronic jams packed with heartfelt performances.
Each artist set to play Saturday night focuses on promoting a conscientious message through his or her music. Papadosio intertwines lessons of environmental importance among other pressing issues throughout their lyrics. Their latest album, Content Coma, explores the dangers of mindless social media scrolling — a topical issue for the majority of us today.
Photo of The Polish Ambassador by Meg O’Neill
The Polish Ambassador and Wildlight also use their songs as a medium for delivering important messages. In addition, David Sugalski of The Polish Ambassador hosted a 35-city “Permaculture Action Tour” where they invited fans to join for a day of hands-on work that regenerates ecosystems. Ayla Nereo of Wildlight frequently joined as well. Both Sugalski and Nereo continue to preach the importance of creating a sustainable ecosystem and their label, Jumpsuit Records, donates a percentage of streaming proceeds to the ActionDays.us organization.
Random Rab promotes conscientious themes in his music and lifestyle as well and frequents festivals that place an importance on leave no trace and conscious expansion. This is also Random Rab’s first Red Rocks appearance and the debut of his live band, The Penumbra.
Photo courtesy of Random Rab’s Facebook
To top it off, the artists for Saturday night have teamed up with Conscious Alliance, an organization that fights hunger worldwide, and are donating a percentage of each ticket to the cause. Saturday, May 11 is a night filled with incredible artists that support incredible causes. It’s a party with a purpose and what better way to celebrate than contributing your best dance moves and biggest smiles to the night.
We chatted with Anthony Thogmartin who plays guitar, synth and vocals for Papadosio to gain some insight into the performance this upcoming weekend.
303 Magazine: Papadosio is no stranger to Red Rocks. How does the band plan to step it up for the performance this year?
Anthony Thogmartin: We’re going to be doing something different this time. We’re bringing out an Asheville band comprised of brass players called Empire Strikes Brass. They are going to be playing a portion of the set with us, which is super exciting. We also have a different lighting director this time around, we are bringing in a pretty intense and fun lighting rig. We’ve got some new material to play, we’ve got a lot of new bells and whistles this time around that we’re really excited to bring to the table.
303: Can we expect to hear songs off the new album, Content Coma, in addition to old selections?
AT: Yeah, this tour has been a bit of a variety show of stuff from the past and the present, as well as remixes and reboots of old songs in new ways. It’s a big mishmash of everything.
Photo of Papadosio by Meg O’Neill
303: Live painters are a big part of your Red Rocks shows, is that something we can expect to see this year?
AT: We’re actually having an art show at Cultivated Synergy. They are hosting a lot of the artists that will be painting at Red Rocks. The art show is called Dialin Art Show, the artists are Sweet Melis, Randal Roberts, Morgan Mandala and Krystleyez. Those are four of the artists that will also be painting at Red Rocks.
303: We love the support for the local artists! Does Colorado hold importance for Papadosio?
AT: It’s a concentration of a lot of fans of ours, it’s a city of music lovers, which is always fun. It’s the center of some of our biggest concentration of fans in general, which is great. It’s been a center of support for the band. It’s a fantastic place and wonderful support for us. In fact, our first tour outside of our regional area was the Denver front range area, we did a bunch of shows there so it’s always been a wonderful place for us to play.